The legend himself, J.R.R. Tolkien reads this iconic chapter from The Hobbit. [DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THIS VIDEO. ALL RIGHTS TO THE MATERIAL BELONG TO THE TOLKIEN ESTATE AND HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHING LTD.]
This is how the book should sound - an old man reading stories to younger people. And Tolkien's knowledge of that story comes through in every word. The ending in particular is chilling - "we hates it forever!"
I have this head-canon of an old man reading the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings to his grandchildren, sometime in England in the 40s (this part probably came from Narnia lol). He's got the Red Book of Westmarch, so I guess he's a distant, distant descendant of one of the charcters in the book. He tells them these stories one night, and little do they know that this is long lost ancient history of a forgotten world.
"He knew, _of course,_ that the riddle game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it" You just got to love the way Tolkien writes and thinks. It's almost the logic of a small child, and it gives it this really fairy-tail like quality.
I agree. I recently rediscovered this when reading the start to Tolkien's _Roverandom_ about a dog turned into a toy. He writes so matter-of-factly that of course toys talk to each other with other toys. Loooong before toy story was even thought of.
This is an invaluable record and it gives us an idea of how J.R.R. Tolkien conceived the voice of Gollum, which is a key aspect of the character. You can almost see his pale, round eyes coldly glittering in the darkness. Kudos to Andy Serkis for his memorable performance.
Tolkien doing the Gollum voice, amazing. I guess it's safe to say this is the authoritative version on what Gollum was supposed to sound like -- voiced by the author himself. It's great to have a recording like this.
He did! Although famously Tolkien wrote out the first line on a whim one afternoon, the rest of the Hobbit's story started as a bedtime story for his 3 boys . He started writing it down when the oldest, Christopher, kept correcting him when he couldn't keep the details consistent.
They are built rather more like Chimps than ordinary humans, and as such are stronger than they might appear for their size - and sink rather readily in water, which is why they fear it.
This was not a formal studio recording. It was not originally intended to be released. It was the 1950s and tape recorders for private use were still uncommon. JRRT was visiting a friend who had purchased a tape recorder, the first one JRRT had ever seen. His readings were just an impromptu tryout of the machine.
Not quite right, I'm afraid. The first part is true, he only learned about tape recorders from a friend. But later he had one of his one and did these recordings for private fun.
I think Tolkien would have appreciated the films. He may not have loved them, but surely appreciated that so many would come to love his work and try their best to remain true to his vision of the characters. Gollum for example. You can totally tell Andy tried to mimic this rendition. Such a great legendarium.
What a wonderful recording. His voice contains such genuine joy and passion for this story he wrote for children. He seems to have written it for himself even more so. One can tell he's having a lot of fun doing Gollum.
The good news is that if you listen extensively to Tolkien's recordings, you can sort of internalize his speech patterns and voice. After that, you can read just about any passage and 'hear' it in Tolkien's voice, or a mental facsimile thereof.
Or feed an advanced ai as many recordings of his story telling voice as possible, and see if it can create a generated version for us to create audio books of his books with his voice
While listening to this one scene came to my mind, when Bilbo (in The Lord of the rings movie) is telling the kids his story with the trolls at his birthday party.
That is Golums voice which Andy based hiss from. Andy was the one imitating, not Tolkien. Though Tolkien would likely argue he was providing an example of what he sounds somewhat like, in a similar way to the way he describes making the elvish language and him interpreting one which was already there, saying even if he had his whole life we would never be able to complete the language
I also like to hear Tolkien singing The Troll Song, he sounded like he was having fun being Sam in the song. "It looks like the shin o' me nuncle Jim who should be a lyin' in graveyard"
A remarkable talent in reading with drama. I love to read but nowadays my tongue speaks before my brain reads the words and it says what it wants. I have saved this for the grandchildren. Thank you... Both.
How many times he read stories to his children, even stories which he wrote himself for them. You can hear it in his delight in doing the voices. I wish I’d heard his voicing of Gandalf and other characters.
Still one of my favorite parts in the book because it’s so exciting a chilling. The tense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere Tolkien builds in the scene and the suspense! I get the same sense of eeriness from the Barrow Wight scene in FOTR.
its kinda ironic that Gollums last riddle is something he was in defiance of for awhile. I mean... if you've gone on the exact same for 500 years I imagine you can safely say time isn't a problem for you.
joelandrews successfully makes use of this portrait of the Author, who is opening the Japanese translated version of his work! You can see that the back cover of this hard-back edition has the very pictures that tell each answer of the Riddles in the Dark (if you can get one you can see them more clearly). Fantastic! Thank you, Joel!
I wonder that as well. Also Martin Freeman as Bilbo going back and forth with Andy Serkis was by far one of the best scenes in movie history. It is so good even with the liberties they take in the story.
I think he had to have heard them. Jackson and co surely had tons of Tolkien material, no doubt including excerpts like these of him reading some of the characters. With how similar Serkis's voice is, I think he definitely lifted directly from Tolkien's impression.
Yeah, there is. The person who wrote the books. This version is how the creative mind that created the character imagined he would sound, so therefore it's the best candidate for "this is the most accurate version"
@@JonGunnarssonDotA it's funny... Lmao... It's funny how even the resource you used.. the link.... The web site... Has... Lord of the Rings... In the fuking link. . . That you chose... How... Now that's true stupidity. Lol
